


Hearth, not Home

by jenna_thorn



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-25
Updated: 2010-06-25
Packaged: 2017-12-20 11:58:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/887002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenna_thorn/pseuds/jenna_thorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Parentage isn't family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hearth, not Home

Maybe if I got to Chiron before the nymphs talked to Mr D., I could explain what had happened. I shook off most of the leaves and dumped my bag at Cabin Three on the way. I could hear Chiron around the corner of the Big House, but figured he was talking to a nymph and as much as I wanted to interrupt that discussion, I really didn’t, so I went the other way, to the front porch. 

Coming in late as I had, there were a lot of new faces. I’d gotten used to it, though, over the past three years. Since we’d widened the search for halfbloods, there seemed to be more kids than ever at camp. It still wasn’t enough to fill the empty spaces, and somehow the chatter seemed louder and yet quieter at the same time, like a bunch of tvs and radios all playing at the same time, but all set with the volume too low to understand. I wondered how many years it would take before I stopped looking for Charlie, or Silena, or even Luke. 

I was so distracted that I stepped up on the porch and nearly tripped over a girl sitting in the corner of the steps playing with a string and some kind of odd-shaped top. “Um, hi.” She looked up and blinked at me, then went back to playing with the top, pulling a string out of it. “Aren’t you supposed to, you know, put that on the floor?”

She held the string in one hand and the top in the other and looked up at me the way Annabeth used to. Well, actually, the way she still did if I got anywhere near her drawings with a soda. “Why would I do that?” she asked.

Chiron bellowed, “Percy Jackson!” and I admit I flinched. He’s not just loud so much as loud for a reason. Command voice. Meant for directing troops on the battlefield or quieting a room full of jabbering kids or, apparently, scaring the bejeebers out of people who were just trying to be friendly. 

The girl smiled up at me, but the edges of her smile were sharp. Honestly, she looked kind of mean. “So you’re the Percy Jackson.”

“I’m pretty sure there’s only one of me, so, yeah, and uh, I gotta go. See you around.” I headed around the corner and only then realized I’d forgotten to ask her name. 

\---:::---

By the time Chiron let me go, I’d explained twice about the serpent, three times about the creek and he hadn’t even let me talk about the Spaghetti-O’s, but I’d promised to spend an hour every day for the next five in cleanup under the nymphs' supervision and that was it. Which was actually letting me off pretty light, considering. But I was still in a kind of a mood as I headed into dinner, not helped by Juniper pouting at me and yanking Grover away by the ... well, literally his hand, but you and I both know better. 

So I sat alone, as usual, at the Poseidon table and pulled splinters out of my jeans while everyone else filed in from whatever they’d been doing while I was running for my ass and then getting pounded into kindling. Annabeth walked in with someone in tow, and I’d raised my hand before I saw the kid she was with was the kid from the porch, the one with the funny top. She followed Annabeth over and we all three got into line for plates. I filled mine, since it had been a long time since breakfast and I was starving. I slid a chunk of beef into the flames and whispered “For Poseidon” and, still standing, shoved a fork into my mouth and started chewing before I realized that Annabeth and the girl were staring at the sacrificial flame. Well, the girl was. Annabeth had her patient face on. Yeah, I know what that one looks like, too.

Annabeth said, “ ... to give honor to the gods.”

The girl just stood there and I asked, “You do know why you are here, right?” Annabeth narrowed her eyes and me and I chewed again and swallowed. One of those days.

“Why waste the food?” The girl shrugged.

“Because it’s why you are here.” Annabeth gave her a look that I recognized all too well, and the girl rolled her eyes and huffed a sigh. Pretty much my usual reaction, yeah. She's always right, kid. Go with it, I thought.

“Fine,” she muttered, and scraped a careful portion of her food into the fire. “For the sponsors of this camp.” Annabeth walked her to the Hermes table, where she sat as far as possible from the twins and bent her head to her plate. She didn’t have the eyes of a Hermes kid, even though she looked familiar, in that way when you meet a friend’s brother or mom for the first time. Annabeth caught my eye as she went to join Athena’s table and made a face at me. I was clearly supposed to do something. I had no idea what, but clearly, I was screwing up something, somehow. 

I looked around the tables again. Each table had a personality, what you’d expect from a family. The Ares table was louder than the others and they were in round two of their nightly arm-wrestling tournament. Athena’s table was quieter with half the kids there still eating and the other half building something complicated out of those little paper cutout things. Maybe a supercomputer, maybe a model of the Empire State building. You never know with them. 

Each table had a mix of skin tone and hair; my father’s family tends to work worldwide, after all, but they all fit together in some way, except for the mousy brown haired girl at the end of the Hermes table, watching Travis roll a drachma over the backs of his knuckles. He palmed it and she blinked and he pulled it out of her hair and she laughed and that’s when I realized. She wasn’t Hermes daughter. She was still Unclaimed. 

I waited for her to leave, then fell into step behind her. “So, how long have you been here?”

“Not long enough to be happy about people sneaking up on me.”

I glanced down at myself; I was wearing tennis shoes, but I’d changed into my camp shirt when I'd dumped my bag. The orange was bright enough to be seen a mile away. “I’m not exactly sneaky. So, headed to Hermes cabin?” 

“For the present. They told me not to unpack.” 

“Yeah, about that. Do you know who your father is?”

“Bite me.”

“Right, that came out wrong, didn’t it? Um, the satyrs wouldn’t have brought you here unless you were the child of a god, right? So either someone’s claimed you and you aren’t happy with that, which is totally cool, okay? Or um, someone broke a promise and that’s really not that okay, and…” And I’m gonna have to figure out what to do about it, I didn’t say. 

She poked me in the stomach, pretty hard, given that I felt it. “I have two very loving parents, thank you very much, and a life and a home and I don’t know about any of the rest of this, but I really wish that you people had never found me.” 

Annabeth’s voice came from behind me. “Actually, it was the chimera that found you. We talked about this. It’s why you are here. They’ll scent you and so you need to be able to defend yourself. And your parents, probably.”

“Everybody else got a baggage claim tag at the gate, so someone screwed up somewhere. Besides, you’d be amazed what my dad can do with a knife. My poppa, too.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised at all.” All three of us jumped, but as she walked up, I relaxed. The gods can take any form, but Hestia seemed to like being a little brown haired girl the best. 

“My Lady Hestia,” I said, but she put a hand on my arm as she walked right on by. The smile slid off my face like chocolate pudding from a spoon. 

“I owe you an apology, it seems, my daughter.”

“I’m not your daughter,” the kid said, and I’ll admit it, I was stunned. Annabeth looked a little scared and the kid was shaking. Hestia tilted her head, but she didn’t seem pissed off, just worried. “Daughter implies family. I have a family and you aren’t in it. I may be genetically um, mythologically genetically somehow …with the … um ..You look seven! I can’t even … “ She sniffed and put her face in her hands. 

Annabeth made a swooshing motion with her hand and we crept quietly backwards. Hestia stepped forward in a taller shape and Annabeth pulled my sleeve. “Let’s give them a moment, okay?”

“Yeah, I'm good with that.” When we were out of earshot, I asked, “She’s twelve-ish, right? She’s got to know that there was a woman involved somewhere back with all of it, right?” 

Annabeth smacked the back of my head. “Dumbass. She’s eleven, not stupid. But parent doesn’t mean family.” 

\---:::---

Annabeth headed to the Big House to tell Chiron, and I went over to Hermes Cabin, figuring I’d let them know they were losing a housemate. They’d gotten rid of a bunch of the extra bunks and it looked really different from when I’d been bunking there. Connor and I were standing near the table when the new girl walked in. Her eyes were a little red, but she wasn’t shaking anymore. 

Connor said, “Percy here filled us in. Looks like you get a private room, shrimp.”

She dragged a suitcase out from under the bunk. “Yeah, I guess so.” It was zipped up, so I held my hand out for the handle. After a moment, she stepped back and let me take it. It had wheels, but we had gravel paths, not the concrete sidewalks of the city. She picked up the top, which had the string wound around it and held out her other hand to Connor. “Thanks, anyway, for …” 

He spread his arms wide and pulled her in for a hug. “Dude, cousins. You’re welcome anytime, Helen.”

She hugged him back and whispered her thanks into his armpit. 

\---:::---

The extra cabins were built in a staggered pattern around the original group and people were walking new trails into the grass between them, but the grass in front of the door to Hestia’s cabin stood up straight and green. I felt kind of bad for smooshing it as I opened the door. Inside was spotless and still smelled of fresh paint. I dropped her suitcase by the bunk and opened a window. Chilly was better than stinky, I figured. “We can, uh, get you a candle or something, I bet.”

“No need. Poppa’s a big believer in aroma-comfort.” She waggled a tiny dark red candle at me. “You have a light?”

“Wow, completely out of my territory. You want something drowned, I’m your guy.” 

“Good thing the rest of us are more civilized, then, hm?” Rachel leaned in the open door and knocked on it. “Are you receiving visitors?”

Helen shrugged and pointed to me. I said, “Hey, I’m just the bellhop, waiting for a tip.” That got a half smile, and I figured that was better than before. “Got anything you want hung up?”

“I just have the two and the table’s big enough.” She set a wooden frame in front of a smaller plastic one and stepped back. One was a photo of two guys in commercial aprons and Helen, a year or so younger, standing in front of them. The little one was a black and white 5x7 of some guy in a white jacket with buttons down one side, with a pale pink splotch in one corner. 

Rachel picked up the wooden one. “Hey, I know that logo. That’s .. holy cats, you’re …?”

“Yep, the family business.” 

“The best bakery in New York City.”

Helen beamed. “Thank you. I’ll let Poppa know we have a fan.” 

We all three stood around for a moment. I rubbed the back of my neck. “Well, it’s kind of bare, but um ... . You may have company. Eventually.”

“Kind of doubt it. Apparently, Hestia doesn’t actually misplace her kids, she just doesn’t expect them to survive.” Helen tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. I blinked and didn’t say anything and thought about Charlie, telling me to run as they pulled him under. She waited for a while, I guess for an answer I couldn’t give, then shook her head and sat down on the bunk. “And that’s why I’m here, right? That’s what Annabeth said, that I needed to learn … stuff.” She looked up at me. “Okay, I’m unpacked. I’m at Camp Half-Blood. I’m a daughter of Hestia.” She took a deep breath and let it out, a little shaky. “Now what?”


End file.
